Almost 5,000 children strip-searched by Metropolitan Police over five years

Police said the number of children being strip-searched was falling (Picture: PA)

Almost 5,000 children were strip-searched by the Metropolitan Police over a five-year period, it has emerged.

Some 4,638 children between the ages of ten and 16 were asked to remove their clothes before being searched by police between April 2008 and the end of 2013, with about a third released without charge.

They also show that Met officers strip-searched just over 134,000 people between 2009 and 2014, of whom 10.5 per cent were females and 3.5 per cent children.

Last year 803 children had to undergo the procedure, compared with 683 in 2009 and 990 in 2010, the newspaper said.

A strip-search involves a suspect being required to remove some or all of their clothing and can require searches of body cavities, including intimate areas.

Sophie Khan, legal director of Police Action Centre, a charity advising people on their rights when pursuing action against the police, said it was ‘disturbing’ that the Met routinely conducted strip-searches on young children.

‘Strip searching is an inhuman and degrading experience and children should not be subjected to such treatment unless there is no other feasible method to detect crime available to the police,’ she said.

But the Met said there had been an 18 per cent drop in the number of strip-searches of juveniles since a peak in 2010.